Tim Harford

speaker

411 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Sep 2026 last heard 6d ago

Tim Harford’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.

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He was beyond excited.

Andy was convinced too.

Bill Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld were legendary figures in Silicon Valley.

And they weren't big picture future trends people like Peratt.

They were technically brilliant programmers.

They were both central in the design and operating system of the original Apple Macintosh, one of the most influential computers ever made.

Have you ever used a drop-down menu on a computer?

A hyperlink?

Double-clicked on a mouse?

That's the work of Atkinson and Hertzfeld.

Peratt, Atkinson and Hertzfeld were convinced that the pocket crystal was the future of personal computing.

So up to a point was the boss of Apple, John Sculley.

But this idea was too big for Apple, a company which made stylish personal computers, not phones.

It would require new hardware, new software and new partnerships.

Phone companies would need to be involved.

So would businesses which specialised in portable electronics.

So in 1990 it was agreed that the Pocket Crystal would need to be developed by a new company, a spin-off.

Peratt, Atkinson and Hertzfeld would run it.

Apple would provide some funding and Scully would sit on the board.

But this bold young company would be able to forge partnerships with other huge players in the electronics and the telecommunications industry.

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